Turkey Frees Nearly 34,000 Prisoners To Make Space In Prisons For Coup 'Traitors'

Nearly 34,000 prisoners have been freed from Turkey's jails to make space for tens of thousands of coup 'traitors'.

Turkish Authorities has dismissed about 80,000 people from public posts, and many have also been detained in a round-up following the attempted coup in mid-July.

President Tayyip Erdogan's government has said it would release a total of 38,000 inmates to create space for the suspects.

It formed part of its its penal reforms in the wake of the July coup that tried to topple the current administration.

Yesterday, it emerged that about 8,000 security personnel and more than 2,000 academics had been suspended, adding to a purge of people suspected of having links to perpetrators of the failed coup.

Since the coup attempt, in which rogue soldiers tried to topple Erdogan's government, Turkey has removed thousands from public duty and arrested many of them, accusing them of sympathising with the plotters.

Of the security personnel removed in the latest purge, 323 were members of the gendarmerie and the rest police, according to the Official Gazette, in which the government publishes new laws and orders.

It said 2,346 more academics had been removed from universities. Hundreds of academics and others have already been swept from their posts, accused of links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Erdogan says masterminded the coup.

About 3,300 judiciary officials have also been dismissed, leaving a depleted workforce to manage the legal process against a growing number of detainees.

The Gazette said retired judges and prosecutors would be allowed to return to work if they applied to do so in the next two months.